Page 554 - Week 02 - Thursday, 9 March 2006
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Wales minister should be directing his efforts rather than making the silly comments he made in the New South Wales parliament yesterday.
Canberra Day
MR GENTLEMAN: Chief Minister, could you provide a report to the Assembly on preparations for the rapidly approaching Canberra Day celebrations?
MR STANHOPE: As we approach Canberra Day, which will take place in three days time, I think that it is appropriate that I do report to the Assembly on the celebration of Canberra Day this year but, more importantly and very significantly, the continuing preparations for Canberra’s centenary in 2013. I must say that I have been very pleased with the support of all members of the Assembly in relation to the preliminary preparations for the celebration of our centenary in 2013, and I certainly look forward to working with every member of the Assembly as planning continues.
In that vein, the task force of chief ministers, past and present, that I have formed to begin that task has been working very constructively and very well, certainly putting Canberra first and the integrity of the celebration at the forefront of our thinking and our work. In that respect, let me report that the task force of myself, Senator Humphries, Ms Kate Carnell, Ms Rosemary Follett and Mr Trevor Kaine has been working hard and productively. We have had tremendous support from Mr Lincoln Hawkins in particular and the secretariat, which has been working very hard.
We have managed to achieve significant community support in the context of the logo competition and the ideas competition that have been a feature of our work over the last six months. The community has responded absolutely magnificently. Members of the community put forward over 1,600 ideas for the ideas competition that we conducted, the results of which we will be revealing tomorrow. Similarly, we held a design competition for a centenary logo. The successful logo has been chosen and developed and that, similarly, will be unveiled tomorrow. In the context of that, agreement has been reached by the task force, in consultation with the commonwealth, on a centenary patron. It will be with enormous pleasure that I announce tomorrow the identity of the centenary patron.
The work is progressing particularly well. I think that it is important that all of us within the Canberra community work, and work together, to achieve all of the outcomes which are possible and which we can imagine from the centenary. This is certainly a once in a century opportunity to sell Canberra to the rest of Australia and the world. I think that it is an unparalleled opportunity for Canberra—certainly for the Assembly and the government, but most particularly for the community—to leverage enormous advantage out of the national and international profile that we can develop through the centenary celebrations. I think that the opportunity is absolutely enormous. We will have to ensure that we grasp the opportunity and that we do in 2013 and the years that follow from it achieve all of the advantages and the outcomes in terms of the profile that the opportunity of the centenary presents.
Certainly, it is a great opportunity for a great party, a year-long party, and fantastic entertainment. It is an opportunity to do things and attend events that are not normally available to us in the national capital. But it is much more than that. I think that in the
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